


break like a matchstick as soon as you're told

by Anonymous



Category: Joker (2019)
Genre: Age Difference, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Extremely Underage, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21619342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: By weird, Bruce meant that he was very, very, very weird. Most likely the weirdest person Bruce had ever known in his entire life. Arthur wasn’t slightly normal. He didn’t even look normal. He had lanky, long, tangled hair and his body twisted in strange ways and it was far too skinny and he wore too many layers of poor, worn, unfashionable clothes and his voice had an odd little high-pitched tilt to it, almost girly. It was sweet and gummy. He was feminine in many ways, too much for him to be seen as quite right in the head.Arthur was very weird, but Bruce liked to play with him for just that reason. It was like watching an adult TV program that Bruce could talk directly to.
Relationships: Arthur Fleck/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 11
Kudos: 165
Collections: Anonymous





	break like a matchstick as soon as you're told

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Roto Como Fósforo Al Enterarte](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24483844) by Anonymous 



> i wanted to try writing from bruce's pov for once. i figured it would be fun. this could be considered more or less a prequel to my work pull, pull just enough, but it could also definitely be considered a standalone as well.
> 
> the title is from bird on a wire by rogue wave.

“I want to ask you something.”

Arthur looked up, his eyes sparkling. “Yeah, anything.” 

Bruce pushed a pool of melted ice cream in his glass back with the edge of his spoon, watching it leak back around. “Why do you hate it when I touch you?”

Arthur blinked, turning just a bit pink underneath the diner’s fluorescent lamps. “What? No, I—I don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Why are you asking me that?” 

Bruce brought his spoon to his mouth and sucked on it. He saw a little twitch go through Arthur. Saw and heard him swallow. It was just another thing that Bruce was forced to add to the list of _Weird Things Arthur Does for No Good Reason_ , which was why he was bringing it up in the first place. “Because you always get nervous when I touch you first. You turn red and you try to run away. But you touch me all the time.”

Arthur looked down at his mug of coffee, fingering the handle and biting his lip. He was quiet for a moment before he finally replied, “Because I can control myself when I know what I’m gonna do to you. There’s no surprises. When you touch me, I don’t know how I’m gonna feel. Or what I’m supposed to feel.”

Bruce frowned and licked up another spoonful of ice cream. “Why do you feel anything?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur murmured. He looked back up at Bruce, like a puppy that had just been punished. “I just know that I shouldn’t.” 

Bruce mulled this over, playing with the rest of his ice cream. “What do you feel, anyway? How’s it any different from a normal person?” 

“It just is. People tell me it’s wrong.”

“Why?” 

Arthur gave another little twitch of his head, looking helpless and lost. “I don’t really know.” 

Bruce was lost as well, unable to understand what Arthur was getting at. It was frustrating. It was annoying. He jammed his spoon into a more substantial chunk of ice cream before climbing out of the booth, grabbing his coat off the seat. “We’re leaving,” he said. “And I don’t want to go home yet. I want to try something. We’re going to go to where you live.”

Arthur stared at him. “Bruce, I can’t—“ 

“We’re going,” Bruce repeated forcefully, buttoning his coat up. “And we’re going right now. I’m bored with this place. I want to leave and talk to you alone.” 

* * *

Out of all the adults Bruce knew, Arthur was the most fun, because he really, really liked to be bossed around and he was too nice, too weird, and too uncomfortable all at the same time. 

And by weird, Bruce meant that he was very, very, very weird. Most likely the weirdest person Bruce had ever known in his entire life. Arthur wasn’t slightly normal. He didn’t even look normal. He had lanky, long, tangled hair and his body twisted in strange ways and it was far too skinny and he wore too many layers of poor, worn, unfashionable clothes and his voice had an odd little high-pitched tilt to it, almost girly. It was sweet and gummy. He was feminine in many ways, too much for him to be seen as quite right in the head. 

Arthur was very weird, but Bruce liked to play with him for just that reason. It was like watching an adult TV program that Bruce could talk directly to. 

Arthur’s apartment was strangely normal compared to what kind of person he was. Bruce voiced this the moment he stepped inside, wrinkling his nose at the smell of stale cigarette smoke. 

“I keep it nice for my mother,” Arthur muttered, hanging his jacket up next to the door. “You know, while she’s in the hospital.”

“You talk about your mother a lot for such an old man,” Bruce remarked, sitting on the couch in the middle of the tiny living room. “Shouldn’t you be living on your own?”

Arthur half-laughed and dipped his head, leaning against the kitchenette counter. “I’m really not old. And I take care of my mother because she needs me to. I don’t want to live on my own.” 

“You’re old enough.” Bruce thought Arthur seemed like a century old. He could vaguely remember Arthur saying that he was thirty-five, which was just as good as a century. There wasn’t much of a difference. “What’s going to happen when you get married?”

“Oh.” Arthur’s voice sounded a little hollow. “Married? I don’t. . . I might not. You know. I might never get married. What’s wrong with that?” 

“You need a wife. Every man does. That’s what my father says.” Although, truth be told, Bruce could not imagine who would make a good wife for Arthur. She would either have to be an insane person or deaf, blind, and mute. 

Arthur rolled his eyes, pushing himself away from the counter. “Oh, sure, because _Thomas Wayne_ says it, it _has_ to be true.”

Bruce scowled. “It isn’t my father’s fault that you don’t have a wife.”

“Maybe I don’t want a wife! Is that so bad? Why does he care? Why do _you?”_

“Do you want a husband instead?” Bruce said, his voice biting and mean, because he hates it when Arthur throws fits. It makes him sound like a baby. “Do you want to be the wife?”

“No,” Arthur snapped, turning scarlet. “No, I don’t.”

Bruce was suddenly hit with a brilliant realization. “Is that what people don’t like? That _feeling_ you were talking about? That you’re a homosexual?” He had a queasy, jumpy sort of feeling in his stomach. “Is that why I’m not allowed to touch you?” 

“No,” Arthur said, his voice sounding choked like his throat had been stepped on. “No, no, no, that’s not it, Jesus Christ. That’s not why. That’s not why.” Bruce saw his shoulders tremble and his teeth clench as he knelt in front of the couch, fragile and bendable and breakable. “Look, Bruce, do you remember when we first met?”

Bruce idly touched the corner of his own mouth, remembering when it had been stretched to discomfort and how Arthur had gripped his neck and then stroked long, pallid fingers down his chest. How Bruce had been able to feel that for hours afterwards. How he had felt the burn of it low in his stomach while he was in bed that night, fingering the plastic petals on the flowers he’d snuck out later to take.

_ Thomas Wayne is my father,  _ Bruce had kept hearing in his head. 

“Yes,” Bruce answered Arthur. 

“See, I’m a—I used to be a clown. A party clown. My name was Carnival. I had a red nose and a red mouth." Arthur's words were harsh and bitter as he snagged the corner of his mouth, tugging it before popping his finger back out with a slick sound. "I would go to birthday parties and other things to make kids happy. That’s what they hired me for. And there were some times where. . . ah. . . I would do things people didn’t like. Grown-ups didn’t like them.”

Bruce’s eyebrows knit together. “Why?”

"I used to do that to other kids. This kinda thing," Arthur said, touching Bruce's bottom lip, pressing his fingertip down against it and pulling it sideways. "Sometimes, I would. . ." he trailed off, slowly pushing his index and middle fingers inside Bruce's mouth. 

Bruce tasted nicotine and cheap plastic and ink and coffee, feeling half-frozen as he gazed back at Arthur, somewhat twitchy. The queasy, jumpy feeling increased, twisting Bruce's insides. Something about it wasn't right. He tried to say something, making an attempt to form "What are you doing?" around Arthur's fingers, but it came out in a garbled, quiet noise and saliva collecting and dripping around the intrusion in his mouth. 

"I did this," Arthur continued. "And I would give them a kiss sometimes for doing a good job or, or, you know, just to wish them a happy birthday." He pulled his fingers back out of Bruce's wet, shiny lips and kissed them instead, light and clumsy. 

Bruce's eyes fluttered and fell shut as he felt a horrible blush creep up to his face from his chest. Before he could even understand what Arthur was doing, Arthur pulled away with a shivering breath, lifting his hand to Bruce's cheek. His gentle, bony thumb stroked over Bruce's flushed skin. "I just wanted to make them happy. You see? Doesn't it feel good?" Arthur asked, looking hopeful, almost desperate. "Right? Don't you like it?"

"I. . ." Bruce shook his head slightly, his eyes shifting down. He didn't know if he did or not. He didn't think he did, because his heart was pounding in a way that made him feel like he'd just been caught doing something he shouldn't have. 

"That was—I just—I got complaints about that. Some people didn't like it. The parents, the ones who didn't understand what I wanted to do, they complained about me. They told my boss about it. Everyone I worked with called me a creep." Arthur's voice sounded choked and sad as he cradled Bruce's face, holding on to him. "None of them liked me because of what I did to make little boys like you smile." 

"What if you are a creep?" There was something that felt warm about Arthur touching him like this, something that made Bruce want to snuggle into him, but it felt, well, off. Like Bruce wasn't supposed to like it. There was that guilty thing that had its hand around the back of Bruce's neck; it was like what Arthur had done at his home, but this was more like a cold sweat. "I don't think you're supposed to kiss boys. That makes you a homosexual. I'm not little, either. I'm almost ten," he added, newly affronted. 

Arthur shook his head adamantly. "No. I don't like them that way. I'm a good guy. I'm not a criminal. I'm not an evil person. I couldn't ever do that." 

Bruce eyed Arthur, his heart thumping against his ribcage in anticipation of what he was going to do next. "You don't like _me_ in that way?"

"No," Arthur said, firm and flat. "No no no, no, I don't, I really— _mnph."_

Bruce felt a sick sort of excitement and anxiety bloom in his chest the second he leaned forward and kissed Arthur. He had never kissed anyone before, not ever, definitely not on the mouth. He'd kissed his mother on the cheek a few times, but he had never done anything like this. It felt so mature and beyond him. Something he wasn't supposed to do until he was older. It made his heart race and his head feel lighter. Especially because he was kissing Arthur and proving him wrong. Arthur was, as it so happened, a creep. Only creeps could possibly want to kiss boys. 

Only creeps could possibly want to keep kissing boys. Arthur made a little sound that was lost between himself and Bruce, more of a vibration than anything, a tickle against Bruce's mouth. It made Bruce's heart skip another beat. To keep himself balanced and so he wouldn't start floating away, Bruce held the sides of Arthur's neck in his hands. Dark strands of wavy hair brushed against his fingers, soft and barely there. He felt Arthur's fingers trailing down, light, careful, making Bruce shake underneath the touch before he finally let his hands fall to Bruce's hips, stroking the fabric of his pants. Bruce couldn't think anymore. It was like his mind had been wiped, done away with, like he was an experiment in a science fiction novel. 

Bruce only woke up when he felt something press against his mouth. Wet and warm and uninvited. He jerked back, his breathing short and uneven. "What is that? What are you doing?" 

Arthur just as looked as stricken and nervous and confused as Bruce did. "I. . ." He licked his lips and shuffled a bit, tugging at his pants. "That's what comes next. Let me just—I want to try," he said, his voice faltering as his fingers curled in the hem of Bruce's shirt. "Please." 

Bruce was torn between intense curiosity and a desire to make Arthur suffer for being so pathetic and stupid and greedy. "Try what?" he asked, narrowing his eyes as he slid his fingers into Arthur's hair, pulling on it. Arthur closed his eyes and made the most peculiar little noise, something like a whine. 

"Kissing. With, um. With tongues. And hands. I haven't gotten to do that very much before." 

Bruce frowned. "You're not making yourself look very good, you know."

Arthur didn't say anything. He rubbed Bruce's shirt between his fingers, eyes big and pleading, looking almost tearful. "Please. Open your mouth when I kiss you." 

". . . fine," Bruce finally said, the curiosity winning him over. "I suppose." 

Arthur pushed himself up just a bit on his knees and pressed his mouth against Bruce's again, lips parted and begging. He made a sound like a moan and it made Bruce's stomach drop, an overwhelming heat filling him from his head to his toes. His fingers clenched themselves in Arthur's hair, tight, tighter still when Arthur slipped his tongue inside Bruce's mouth. 

It was suffocating. It was bizarre. Bruce didn't know what to make of it or why Arthur had wanted it in the first place, but it wasn't as good as just kissing. Arthur kissed Bruce like he was starving to death, with his sharp tongue and bad teeth and grabbing hands. Especially grabbing hands. They pulled Bruce forward, firm and insistent, until he found himself on top of Arthur's legs rather than on the couch.

Bruce squeaked and felt himself shudder, his hands flailing before they found a place on Arthur's shoulders. Bruce wasn't sure exactly when he had lost the upper hand, but he most certainly had. He felt a lot more like his heart and his senses were flailing, his guilt and anxiety spiking and manifesting itself as fear that was eating at his gut. And he wasn't sure why. He could break away and say horrible things that would break Arthur's spirit. He thought about what Alfred had said the other day, about calling the police. He could do that, too. He could do a lot of things. 

But he wasn't and Arthur had him pressed between an unrelenting matchstick of a body and the front of an aging, worn-out couch and he felt almost like crying, something he hadn't done in a very long time. Arthur suspending him in place when he slid his hands underneath the sweater Bruce wore, fingers touching what absolutely should not be touched. Stomach, ribs, chest, bare skin that Arthur shouldn't have had access to. 

Arthur broke the kiss and buried his face in Bruce's neck instead, panting. "I'm sorry," he gasped out, his lips brushing Bruce's skin. It burned where they touched him. "Bruce, I'm sorry." He kissed the side of Bruce's neck, fluttering presses of his mouth, fumbling and frantic. Bruce grabbed at Arthur's shirt and hair, pulling, eyes shutting against his will. It felt good. It did. Really, Bruce didn't _want_ Arthur to stop, but it was making the corners of his eyes sting and his throat ache. He couldn't talk anymore. 

_"Ngh."_ Bruce whimpered and squirmed on Arthur's lap, something that made Arthur swear and move his hips up against Bruce, an awkward, stilted movement. Bruce felt fuzzy in his mouth as a tear rolled down his cheek. 

"Why. . . ?" He couldn't force it out. He didn't know why Arthur felt the way he did, why there was something hard pressed against Bruce's backside, but he knew it was just going to make this all worse somehow. 

Arthur's breathing was ragged and it sounded deafening near Bruce's ear. Fingers groped and clutched at the button and zipper on Bruce's pants and Bruce suddenly felt sick to his stomach. At last, he understood what this was meant to lead to. 

Bruce understood sex as a very basic, abstract concept. It was something a man and a women did very late at night when they were married and slept in the same bed together. They touched each other and one thing led to another and the point of it all in the end was to have children. His mother had explained it as a very private matter that was meant to be left behind closed doors. 

Bruce had some sort of a vague idea that this was something like that, but nothing about it should have been happening. He remembered seeing a video in second grade, something completely stupid and uninteresting with puppets that was supposed to teach him about being afraid of adults and how if they touched him the wrong way, he needed to shout for help or run away. He'd never understood what that had meant until now or what something like that was even supposed to be. 

In Arthur's apartment, where Bruce could hear a woman screaming from outside the window and trash cans rattled and crashed to the ground and things slammed and people were cruel, who could hear him if he tried to speak up? Who would even help him? People were not kind. Arthur had explained that to him on no uncertain terms far before this. Arthur was the only adult he had right now. And Arthur wasn't even hurting him. He was just being even stranger and more awful than he usually was. That made it worse somehow, that Arthur wasn't doing this to hurt Bruce—at least he wasn't from what Bruce could tell. He was doing it because he was bad and he was selfish and he was weird. 

Bruce tensed up and coughed out a sob when Arthur touched him. It was over his underwear, stroking him with the smallest touch, but it was enough for Bruce to feel it. "No," Bruce managed, his voice hidden in Arthur's shoulder. "N-not there."

Arthur faltered, withdrawing his hand for a moment. Bruce held his breath, his sniffling subdued with the fabric of Arthur's shirt. He felt another kiss on his neck, damp and open, slow, sugary before Arthur slid his fingers past the waistband of Bruce's underwear and curled them around Bruce. Bruce whined and pulled as hard as he could on Arthur's hair, the only protest he had, because it really _did_ feel good. It did and it made Bruce feel dreadful.

"I've never done this before." Arthur's voice was tiny and broken. He sounded almost as tormented as Bruce felt. "I've never touched anyone like this. Just myself. You're so small. Look at you." He stroked his fingers up and a noise was forced out of Bruce's mouth, a cry as something snapped in bright, white light behind his eyes. It was shocking enough that he forgot his breakdown for a moment, his body going slack and loose in Arthur's arms. Sound was even more disorienting to him now and he suddenly felt very, very tired. 

"That was fast." Arthur giggled, sounding dazed, kissing Bruce's head. Bruce felt oversensitive, every tiny touch making him want to shy away. "And clean, too. I forgot about that part. No mess to clean up with you. Not like me. Because I'm old, remember?" Bruce heard the sound of another zipper. He refused to lift his head from Arthur's shoulder. He wanted to leave and go to bed.   


"Hah, ah—" Arthur groaned and Bruce felt his shoulder move. His knuckles brushed the inside of Bruce's thigh, a steady, brisk movement. Bruce didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about any of this anymore. 

At the very least, it only lasted another minute or so. Arthur seemed to gag on his own words and Bruce felt him begin to slow, little by little until his hand stopped moving against Bruce's leg. 

"Fuck." It was short and simple and Bruce had heard the word a fair few times before, mostly from his father, but it still didn't make it less alarming to hear. "Fuck, I saw stars." Arthur laughed again, pulling Bruce off his shoulder and inspecting him. "Oh, no," he wheezed out in between his mirth, covering his mouth with his hand. "Look at you! That sweater probably cost Dad more than my rent costs me! It's—ha—it's ruined, oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry." 

Bruce looked down at himself. The front of his sweater was stained with a wet, pearly-white stickiness. He touched it with the very tips of his fingers, disgusted and miserable. When he tried to speak again, it barely came out in one piece. 

"Take me home," he forced out. "I want to go home." 

Arthur swallowed his smile and nodded. "Yeah. Okay. That's fine." He swiped his finger through the mess on Bruce's shirt and sucked it off, much to Bruce's dismay. "I'll give you a shirt of mine. You can tell Dad you fell in a puddle at school. They gave you a shirt from the lost-and-found. That's what I always told my mother." 

"Will you tell her about this?" Bruce asked, his voice wavering and dripping with venom, teetering right on the edge of falling apart. "Does she know what you want to do to boys?" 

Arthur looked baffled. "No. She doesn't, ah. . ." He looked down and tried to do Bruce's pants back up for him. Bruce smacked the back of Arthur's palm, but even that didn't deter him. He refastened everything anyway. "She doesn't know anything that's happened."

"I hope she finds out," Bruce muttered, climbing off Arthur's lap. He snatched his coat off the edge of the couch and began to pull it on. He'd die before he'd wear any shirt of Arthur's. (Not only did he just loathe Arthur right now, but he hated the idea of wearing a cigarette-reeking, holey sweater that was far too big on him and looked like something that had been donated years ago to the less fortunate.) "I hope she won't let you live with her anymore." 

"Don't be angry with me," Arthur said, a note of panic ringing in his voice. He hugged Bruce's legs, resting his head against Bruce's hip and looking up at him with the eyes of a doe. "Don't. Please. I'm sorry if I did anything you didn't like, I didn't mean to, it was just instinct. I promise. I didn't mean to do anything that would hurt you. I care about you." He rubbed his cheek against Bruce's hip, shutting his eyes. "I do. You're my—you could be my _brother._ I need to keep that. Please let me."

"Please leave me alone," Bruce whispered, stepping out of Arthur's grasp. "Just take me back home." 

"Bruce—"

"Take me home." Bruce swallowed hard and turned, making his way towards the door. His memories of Arthur giving him flowers were somewhere inaccessible, painted over with fresh memories of Arthur moaning in his ear and begging for a kiss. He dreaded the idea of going to sleep tonight. "Please, Arthur, just take me home." 


End file.
